IPhone as Brain Replacement

"If you put my working body parts together with those of my husband, you still wouldn't have a whole functioning human being," J half-joked the other day. We were sitting in the car and I was gearing myself up to open the door and get out. I've had pain in my left shoulder for a couple of weeks now and certain movements make me uncomfortable indeed. "Add mine to the mix and you still wouldn't make the grade," I said, not joking at all. 

 Why is it that everything seems to be falling apart at an accelerated rate? Wasn't it just yesterday I noticed all these wrinkles? These age spotted hands? A sudden crick in the knee? The gray hair? I grunt when I get out of bed in the middle of the night, say ooof when I try to get up off my knees (the same second grader who remarked that I looked older than John McCain sometimes offers to help me get up off the floor). I creak when I bend over and creak again when I straighten up. Little involuntary sounds escape without warning whenever I move too suddenly. And what's with the forgetfulness? Yesterday J's son Bri brought home a small parakeet, a lovely little blue and yellow thing in a green cage. "What have you named it?" I asked when I first saw it. He said he hadn't given it a name yet. We talked a bit about the bird's period of adjustment with two cats in residence, what to feed the wee thing and where the best place in the house was for a captive bird. Near a window? Hanging from the kitchen ceiling? 

 "What have you named it?" I asked, and then, "I just asked you that, didn't I?" Bri just looked at me and shook his head. On recounting this to J, she laughed. "He was probably thinking, 'Oh lordy, I'll have to be taking care of her along with my aging parents.' " 

 I see that same sort of half-impatient, half-worried look on my own children's faces when I say something I suddenly realize I've said already, and probably a dozen times. This has been going on for years, true ("We know Mom, we know," was a constant refrain in our house), but all of a sudden it seems to be happening more frequently. Maybe it's because I live alone and I can't remember if what I'm saying is new to my audience or something I've only mumbled aloud to myself. I've been playing Scrabble and doing crossword puzzles and taking Mensa tests in an effort to keep my mind nimble and my memory intact - maybe it's because I live alone and I can't remember if what I'm saying is new to my audience or something I've only mumbled aloud to myself...

 I want some magic pill to slow things down, to let me age a little more slowly. My daughter recently purchased an iPhone, the little computer in a handheld box that does it all. If man can invent the iPhone, surely s/he can come up with something equally impressive to prolong the life of our most personal computer; what I need is an iPhone brain implant. 

Little Indignities

The other day a student rushed up for a hug. Then she looked at me and asked, "Why do you have two different shoes on?" I looked down at my feet. Sure enough, the left foot wore a blue shoe, the right one a brown. I have taken to wearing Crocs since a bout with plantar fasciitis so at least I was wearing the same style shoe. They were just not the same color. I grinned at her. "It's weird shoe day, didn't you get the notice?" I asked. She shook her head. Then she took off down the hall to ask her friends if it really was weird shoe day. I ducked into my classroom. Later in the day I saw the same student in the hall. "I think you're the only one who got the weird shoe day notice, Ms. Clarke," she confided. "No one else did!" Well. 

 J burst out laughing when I related the story to her and told me about the day she went to work with her skirt on inside out. If anyone noticed they didn't mention it. Finally a student asked her why she had those funny threads on her skirt. J looked down. Sure enough, all her seams were showing. She hustled into the women's room and righted herself. "It was dark when I got dressed," she made excuse. I know. It's dark in my closet, too. 

 As if looking foolish wasn't enough for the day, that night I got out of bed to use the facilities. I caught my foot on a basket of magazines that I've avoided on my nightly trips for the past 8 years. My balance, never good since an inner ear infection, deserted me completely and I fell. Fortunately a chair stopped my body and the china cabinet stopped my face. I crept painfully into the bathroom to inspect the damage, fully expecting to see the beginnings of a black eye and a split lip. I thought I detected some minor swelling and two red spots on chin and forehead but the next morning there was not a mark on my face. You'd think I'd at least have had a bruise to show for all the pain, some swelling and a shiner to brag about. 

 "That's how it starts, Memere," my daughter-in-law said ominously when I joked to her about being old and falling. "I was able to get up by myself, though," I reminded her, feeling suddenly much older. While we spoke, I moved the offending magazine basket. I am not yet, nor do I want to be, at the emergency-call-button-night-light-on-clear-path-to-the-bathroom stage of old. J says we just have to take these things in stride. At least, she reminds me, we're still laughing at our mishaps. I just wish I wasn't laughing so often!

We Can't Because...

We just can’t…

Finish that sentence with
1. clean the house because it’s too big (J) or organize it because it’s too small (P).
2. mow the lawn, rake the grass, bag the grass, distribute the grass in the garden rows because we’ve worn ourselves out thinking about cleaning.
3. weed the garden, pick the ten thousand ripe tomatoes, can the ten thousand ripe tomatoes, or eat one more zucchini because the garden is just about done producing anyhow and besides, some of those weeds are supposed to be edible.
4. do both loads of wash in one morning because to hang two loads on the line requires twice the energy.
5. iron those blouses that have been hanging around waiting to be ironed because once they’re worn just one time, they’ll need washing and ironing again.
6. make a big dinner because cereal and milk is just so much easier.
7. clean the porch (or the garage or the closets) because next year they’ll look exactly as they do now.
8. entertain because the thought of making large quantities of food and then cleaning up large quantities of dishes make us think of napping.
9. make the bed, because, speaking of napping, it’s what we like to do best in the middle of the afternoon and what’s the point of making a bed THEN?
10. do much of anything. It’s just too exhausting!


J and I have discussed this lack of energy a LOT. J has proposed the theory that now we’re at this age, we understand that we’re perfectly capable of doing all these things so we don’t have to. We don’t have to prove anything or demonstrate our abilities. So, though all these things need doing constantly and unendingly, there’s no need to really DO them because we know, should the need arise, we could rise to meet it.

I like that theory but I’ve put my lack of energy down to, well, a lack of energy. It’s not boredom based, it’s not based on laziness, it’s tied to everything else we talk about on this blog – body deterioration. It’s like our bodies are saying, “I know how to do this, I just can’t right now.”



photo: www.mypeopleclipart.com

Missing Grace

Growing old gracefully is somewhat of an oxymoron. There is nothing graceful about wobbling behind a metal walker or hobbling with cane in hand. J and I have not yet, thankfully, reached that stage but there are other things that come to mind as particularly graceless.

Getting Up And Down. Getting down is not as problematic as getting back up, which requires much forethought and a new kind of dexterity. I often get down on the floor to play with the grandchildren. I’m fine sitting cross-legged or sprawled on my side but it requires both of mine and all four of the grandkids’ arms to get me upright again. I can lean on one hand, push myself onto my knees and from there manage (with a boost) to stand. Or I can grab onto something sturdy and haul myself unceremoniously to my feet. Neither way exhibits grace in any form, especially when accompanied by various grunts and whistling breaths.

Getting Caught. Not the old standbys like getting caught in a zipper or getting trapped in your car. Getting caught on the toilet seat is NOT the same thing. J recounts the time her mother slipped unannounced into the bathroom. Moments later there was a tremendous crash. J ran for the door and called out, “Mom, are you ok?” Mom walked out, adjusting her clothing.

“Of course I’m all right. I just got my jeans caught on the toilet seat.”

J looked at her.

“Well,” demanded her mother. “Hasn’t that ever happened to you?”

“Ummm… no,” said Jan. She was just 42 at the time and it hadn’t happened to her. She tried to imagine such a thing.

“You sit down and your jeans are around your knees. And when you lean forward your jeans hike up in the back and get caught on the edge of the seat and then when you stand up, the seat falls down behind you.”

“Oh,” said Jan.

Now she’s 63 and guess what. Today she slipped unnoticed into the bathroom and moments later there was a tremendous crash.

“Are you all right?” called her husband.

J didn’t even bother to answer. How do you explain such a thing? She did think to herself, “Oh my poor mother. NOW I understand.”


Getting Uncrossed. When we were young ladies we were taught to cross our feet at the ankle when sitting down. Then we learned to cross our legs at the knee, showing off our stockinged calves to boys at dances. Now we can’t do either because of the excess flesh we’ve acquired. Where did it come from? We have lumps and bumps and bulges and it all jams up when we sit down. Nothing crosses anymore; not our flabby arms over our bulging chests, not our chubby knees, not even our puffy ankles. However, we’ve both noticed that our toes are beginning to cross, probably from wearing the wrong shoes all those years. Now we know why native peoples go barefoot.

A Chronology of Deterioration, Part I

P learning to control lip leak and J with her own invention of the nose tampon.



SOMEWHERE after fifty-five-ish one reaches the Stages of Deterioration, also known as the big D. One morning you wake up and you can't read anymore. You rush off to the eye doctor and he says, "Well, that's what happens."

That's what happens?

Uh huh, that's all they can tell us. And it's a hot ride downhill from there. You not only can't see as clearly as you did yesterday, you can't hear as well, or get out of bed with the same vigor, or get up off the floor without getting to your knees first and heaving yourself upright. You look in the mirror and it's as though you've just washed your face and can't do a thing with it, all of your vital parts have headed south on the express train and in the process certain body parts have doubled in number—chins, for example, or butt cheeks. Yesterday you had one chin and two buttocks; today you have two chins and four cheeks, three side grips, two distinct belly rolls, and upper arms that look like balloons with slow leaks.

You have pains in places you know shouldn't hurt, patches of itchy skin, spots of various colors in previously unspotted places. Your memory isn't what it used to be and besides that, your memory isn't what it used to be.

All things being equal, (this blog is not for those who die suddenly), the years from fifty-five-ish to when you're finally OLD are a series of little degradations. One word of advice. Hang onto your sense of humor. You're going to need it. When all the things you've taken for granted—your figure, your teeth, your eyesight, your control over bodily fluids (see photo above)—and your need for all those things that you (and everyone else) have mistaken for identity markers disappear, it's just you and whatever makes you belly laugh. And if you can't laugh, you'll just get depressed and either rush off to the first plastic surgeon that your fingers walk to in the yellow pages or you'll stay home all the time because your nostrils leak.

Don't think you are not going to deteriorate. You can't cheat it. But relax, it doesn't happen all at once, just mostly all at once. We (J and P) are here to share with you all the things our mothers never told us (or maybe they did but we didn't listen to them) about the aging process. We're both in our 60s, both gradually turning into people we don't recognize on the outside but still hanging on to our prime 40s on the inside. We compare notes constantly.

P bewildered: "I blew my nose this morning and I got this wicked sort of scraping pain in the back of my throat."

J in commiseration: "I know. It's like you blew your nose and you missed and the air got sucked in from the wrong place."

or

J in dismay: "I've discovered you have to put your bra where your boobs are. Even if you tighten the straps and try to haul them up to where they should be, they just fall out from underneath and you're constantly having to make adjustments."

P sighing: "We need to invent bra strap extensions."


We thought it might be helpful for those approaching the big D to be aware of some of the pitfalls of the aging process. We’ll post them as they happen to us and figure you can either sympathize or empathize, depending on how far along the geriatric path you are.


P & J